The five keys to pay attention to to know who can win the elections

By Jonathan Allen - NBC News

WASHINGTON - The barrage of information reaching voters in the last week of an election can seem overwhelming.

Most people only want to know one piece of information: the name of the winner.

To get that information they will have to wait at least until next Tuesday, Election Day, and possibly longer.

But there are ways to examine the bluster, twists, and expert opinions circulating to get a sense of how things are going.

In that sense, here are some questions to consider during this week.

The travel plans

Biden is in attack position, and Trump taking care of the defense. 

In campaign operations, a world focused on details, there are numerous ways to fool an opponent and the media.

Campaigns will reserve ad time in certain states to suggest that those areas are their priority and then backtrack.

At the beginning of the process, they will send the candidate or their substitutes to states where they don't really think they can compete.

But the most valuable resource for any campaign is the candidate's time, and that becomes even more true as the election approaches.

There is no room for error and everyone can see where the candidate is heading in the electoral race. 

With a week to go to the election, Trump visits three states in one day while Biden focuses on Georgia

Oct. 27, 202002: 50

In modern campaigns, which use complex data models to determine how they can get the most bang for their buck, candidates are sent exclusively to states where they believe their presence can make a difference.

That way, voters can know which states each campaign thinks are at stake. 

On Monday, Trump held three rallies in Pennsylvania, where he won his 20 electoral votes by less than one percentage point in 2016. On Tuesday, he had plans to be in Michigan and Wisconsin, states where he also won by tens of thousands of votes.

Biden was in Pennsylvania for a small voter meeting on Monday and in Georgia on Tuesday.

So far, the candidates' agendas show no visits to any state that Trump missed in 2016.

[Follow our coverage of the 2020 presidential elections]

The publicitary advertisements 

The other clear sign of a campaign's priorities is which ads are the most expensive to spend money on.

More revealing than the increase in advertisements in a particular state is the decision to reduce advertising in one place so that money can be injected elsewhere. 

Why doesn't the candidate with the most votes always win the presidency

Oct. 28, 202002: 30

Sometimes that happens because a campaign feels like it is winning where it removes the ads - and polls should give an indication if that's the case - but it's more common to keep the ads where a candidate is. winning and reduce or eliminate them where the candidate has given up.

Trends in surveys

It is much easier to tell from polls if the race is going in one direction than it is to determine who will win.

Surveys have margins of error for a reason, namely that they may be narrowly wrong. 

Each poll is a snapshot of the moment and its accuracy depends on how good your model of the electorate is.

But it is possible to see the changes in the voters.

If a candidate begins to perform better in multiple polls in a state, or particularly in multiple polls from the same pollster, that is often an indicator that voters are moving in favor of that candidate down the stretch. 

Donald Trump has stepped up his campaign in Pennsylvania, a key state in the electoral race.

AP

Pennsylvania on Election Day

No state is more important to both campaigns than Pennsylvania.

Multiple projections have indicated that the state is the tipping point for both candidates, that is, it is the one most likely to indicate whether Trump or Biden wins.

Does that mean that none of the candidates can win the election without Pennsylvania?

No. Each has possible paths to the presidency that do not go through Pennsylvania.

But they are very narrow.

Just over 6 million people voted there in 2016, and Trump won by fewer than 45,000 votes.

Clinton got 45% of her votes from Philadephia and the surrounding counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery.

Trump had more weight in rural areas of the state, but he also did well in smaller cities and in the suburbs.

One point to pay attention to is how many votes Biden gets in the Philadephia area.

If it exceeds 1.4 million in the city and surrounding counties, it may be difficult for Trump to compensate in the rest of the state.

Former Vice President Joe Biden greets supporters at a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia.

AP / Andrew Harnik

Another key point is the margin of vote difference in and around smaller cities, which gave Trump a big boost in 2016. Trump won Erie County by about two percentage points four years ago.

But Obama won it by 16 points in 2012 and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf won it by more than 20 points in the 2018 midterm elections.

Lancaster County, a traditional Republican stronghold, has shown signs of Trump fatigue.

Can the Republican nominee win him again by 47,000 votes - a figure that means he gets more votes than in his previous statewide victory - or will Biden cut that number?

Florida on Election Day

Trump cannot afford to lose Florida.

Point.

On paper, he could win the election without the state, but the odds are slim to none.

If there's a clear head start for Biden there, the rest probably won't matter. 

[Fake news in Spanish intensifies among Latinos in Florida and that worries Democrats]  

The good news for Trump is that he has promoted policies tailored to Republican-leaning Floridians.

Your recent ban on drilling for oil [off the coast of Florida] is a good example.

So is his anti-socialist rhetoric.

In recent election cycles, the state has been like football in the

comic

: Democrats are Charlie Brown, always hoping to catch the ball, and Republicans are Lucy, always taking it away at the last minute.